Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Saunders' First Lathe Sub Spindle Transfer! Defining Your Role While the Company Grows! Grimsmo Settles in New Shop.
173 Plays5 years ago
John & John have a crazy busy week ahead. Saunders' dives into great detail about his first lathe sub spindle transfer. They both go into great detail about process and the fine tuning that goes into something like switching parts on a lathe. John Grimsmo goes over the plan for moving into the new shop next week! This includes getting the Kern that comes on Monday! Both Johns also touch on switching between the technician, manager and owner as the company grows. They both have great knowledge to share in regards to scaling your own personal growth alongside the company that you run! They reference a book called "Extreme Ownership" By Jocko Willink.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Entrepreneurial Growth
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode 153. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. And this is the podcast where two entrepreneurs are growing their businesses and always dealing with struggles and willing to talk about it. So that's what we do.
New Year Optimism and Beginnings
00:00:18
Speaker
No struggles this week. We're finding, I actually was on the road a bit and between listening to some podcasts, reading some books and just the way we're starting off 2020, things are feeling very good. That's amazing. But let's hear more about what's going on with your shop.
Shop Progress Updates
00:00:39
Speaker
or you in general. So lots happening on our front. Let's see. I mean, the new shop, we've had it for a couple, two weeks now. Floors are, I think they're done. There might be one section that needs one more coat still, but they look stunning. They look like a hospital. They look incredible. Yeah, exactly.
00:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, I've used the phrase make it like a doctor's office, like many times, both bright, clean, well lit. And yes, the floors are basically done. Lights are in we got LED UFO lights. Oh, wow. Yeah, great. They're fantastic. I mean, at
00:01:24
Speaker
Were they like $180 each Canadian? And I was like, they made up a little lighting plan for me. And they're like, eh, we could get away with eight, but you know, 12 would be better. So let's do 12. And, uh, yeah, they're just hooking up the last of the switches today for those.
Plumbing and Water Systems
00:01:41
Speaker
And then what else, what else? I got my plumber. I've been avoiding going over his quote and just making sure everything's okay. Not avoiding, just it's one of those things. I gotta do that, I gotta do that. Oh, but I gotta do this first. Last week when we talked though, the plumber dilemma was there wasn't one. Yeah, I found one, like the guy that I had dealt with, his buddy. So I met with him on Friday, which was good.
00:02:09
Speaker
last week and we went over the plan and he said okay I'll come up with a quote for you a scope will work and make sure we're on the same page with everything and give you some pricing and I just haven't had a chance to look at that quote yet but today got it for sure what that would that's the sink and sort of ancillary stuff it's not not directly related to machines did correct yeah in the in the
00:02:34
Speaker
warehouse area, there is zero water whatsoever. So we have to install both feed and drain back to the system. So it's not a huge deal, but it certainly takes some forethought. And we're going to put in, I think we're going to do four sinks around the shop because we use them all the time. So you'll put in a hot water heater in that building as well then? I think what we're going to do is we're going to have, yeah, either
00:03:01
Speaker
There is a hot water heater in the office section, but we might put a smaller, no, what's it going to do? We're going to piggyback off of the main hot water heater in the offices, and we're going to run a loop all the way around the shop and back to the hot water heater that's constantly going to circulate hot water through the shop. Because the last thing I want is to turn on the hot water and have to wait for 30 seconds for it to get all the way around the building.
00:03:26
Speaker
that just seems wasteful. So yeah, the loop idea I didn't know about and he told me that I was like, that's pretty cool. And then he said you just buy like cheap insulation to wrap around all the exposed packs and kind of keep it warm. So you're not bleeding heat out of it. That's awesome. Yeah.
00:03:44
Speaker
Have you, I was gonna ask you a question about water. Oh, do you guys have, do you have hard water in Toronto area? I haven't measured it, but from everything I think I know, it's like medium.
00:03:58
Speaker
No need to install a softener. Are they a thing up there? No. Not that I know. If you live up on the mountain, apparently, and you have a well or something. Sure. Yeah, but no. Okay, cool. But for the machines I am going to buy, it's on my list to buy, is a DI and icing setup, like you've talked about, and like the quality chem guy recommends. Okay, well, so if you're going to do that, just DI, not RO? Correct.
00:04:26
Speaker
Okay. That's fine. What we have learned, we have, I would say harder water, approximately 275 parts per million for folks that are listening and wondering what, what rel it's all relative, but we have DI after an RO and our RO is the $75 Amazon kind of aquarium kit, which frankly is fine, except that RO membranes are just that they're a membrane. So they wear out and they work.
00:04:54
Speaker
better and longer based on feeding them better water? Well, how do you feed them better water if your water is hard to start with? And the answer there is a water softener.
00:05:03
Speaker
And so I kind of fought this thinking I could bootstrap it and realizing, nope, not the thing to bootstrap. And actually it's wonderful bootstrapping, not from a cost sense, because even the water softener was only a few hundred dollars or three, $400. So our setup is now water softener to RO. And then the DI is an inexpensive final stage that not only helps increase the water, but it gives me a visual indicator because we can see the DI resin.
00:05:31
Speaker
through the clear canister, and it's inexpensive. But again, it's all these little quirks. What was the phrase? I think we covered this in our water video. If you don't correctly handle recharging the DI, it'll actually effectively
00:05:51
Speaker
put out salt water. The consequence of running it past, like if you let an RO membrane run past its functional life, it just stops filtering and just ends up putting through unimproved water, whereas a DI filter will start discharging all of the, I believe, chlorides that it has tried to otherwise separate. It'll just basically discharge them back into your water system. So it's just a funny thing to think about and realize as we've gone down this journey. That's interesting.
00:06:21
Speaker
My point is if you're going to do a water softener, I would recommend just doing it at your input to the shop because you probably don't use that much water period and not having hard water everywhere makes it really nice for your pipes and for when you're rinsing off a part versus just having it at one spot for say the machine water. Interesting.
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah, we don't need a softener, but I can imagine a lot of people could, depending on their location. Does that need maintenance, like replacing stuff, the softener? You have to put in salt, but I mean, every two or three months, not much. Okay, but you do have to maintain it. Okay. Yeah, I mean, to me, maintenance implies monitoring and- You can't forget about it. Yes, it's not set and forget.
00:07:16
Speaker
It's the easiest thing to maintain. I mean, it's easier than checking oil or topping off something. It's really not bad. It's interesting that you're going RO and then to DI. Now, RO is filtering the water? RO is a membrane. So yeah, my understanding is it's a type of filter. So it pushes the water through a membrane that basically traps the chlorides and
00:07:46
Speaker
What are the other things that it doesn't like and then allows the rest? RO is a relative filter. So depending on the condition of your membrane and the type of membrane, it's going to improve the water by say 90%. So whatever you put in will get so much better.
00:08:05
Speaker
So they're not binary. And in fact, that's the lesson that we've learned is folks have purchased water from grocery stores. It's been RO water and it's horrible because they can, they can say that the straight face is RO water, but that doesn't speak to the original condition of the water nor the condition of the membrane. Interesting.
Shop Moving Plans and Machine Readiness
00:08:29
Speaker
What else, going back to the shop, anything that surprised you that you can share or learned or interesting takeaways? It sounds like it's going really well. It's going really well. I'm busy, but I'm not freaking out about anything.
00:08:47
Speaker
There's a couple things here and there that immediately become the priority and you just take care of that. But it's super handy having it close like across the street. Let's see. What was it? Something jumped out of me and I was like, oh yeah, I forgot to do that.
00:09:09
Speaker
So we booked the riggers, the guy, the president of the company wanted to come by and like assess, you know, the old location, the new location, the distance, and just kind of come up with a plan.
00:09:22
Speaker
He did this a few months ago, but that was before knowing about the new place. So he came and he wanted to see what the new place is like. And he's like, okay, it's, you know, ground level loading and easy. And I was like, dude, the floors are immaculate. Like, please, you know, tell your guys, and I'm going to tell your guys that do your absolute best here to not scuff or scratch or like, you know, be otherwise ham fisted with these floors.
00:09:49
Speaker
But yeah, so today's Wednesday, they're scheduled for Monday. So basically by Monday morning, the machines have to be ready to go. Wait, so we record this on Wednesday. So you're gonna start, you're still working at the shop though, right? The shop's 100% right now. Wow, so what's your plan? So the plan is yesterday morning,
00:10:15
Speaker
Angelo finished the last parts he needs on the Nakamura. So the Nakamura is now done. Um, today we're going to, we're going to run the cleaner, the coolant cleaner, um, through the machine for a little bit and then dump the coolant. And then you got to rinse. So we're going to put like a low amount of pre-mix in there, run it through the lines, rinse that out. Uh, and then put the brackets on the shipping brackets. I think we have to take the call it chucks off unfortunately, but it should be a big deal. That's a bummer.
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think the brackets attached to the spindle faces. So that's fine. And then otherwise decommissioning the machines were reading through the instructions and getting it getting it dialed. We did have the option to get Ellie Metzger to come in and do it, but both through stalling and
00:11:03
Speaker
also just running out of time and wanting to do it ourselves, then it won't be that hard, I don't think. And then, yeah, the Swiss I'm running today, and then I'll be doing the same thing for it. I got to pump all that oil out. Oh, really? Yeah. Luckily, I'll just pump it back into the drums that it came in. Oh, that's so I definitely I definitely have the volume.
00:11:29
Speaker
We're getting waste management guys to come by and drop off seven drums today so we can dump all the coolant into it and just dispose of it because the Maury is two years old, the NAC is three years old. Your coolant's lasted three years. Heck yeah. Good for you. Hasn't been great in the Nakamura. In the Maury, it's still good after two years. What is it, 250 quality? Yeah, quality come 251. Okay. Yeah, C.
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Only downside with the more is it foams and we've had it foam over, um, over the coolant tank and like leak on the ground and stuff. And I've been dealing back and forth with them and they're like, it shouldn't. And I'm like, it does. And they're like, it shouldn't. Yeah, that's interesting. Um, I've got some notes here. Um, cause quality chem actually is helping us educate like they're, they've been sharing their technology. Um, I don't want to speak off hand without,
00:12:23
Speaker
knowing the details of it, but I can go through my notes here. It sounds like you've already done that directly with them, but it's kind of one of those things, like you're right, like any time they talk about it, they're always like, well, we have an absolute certain answer, and then sometimes when you try something that doesn't work, they're like, I think. The different textbook is different than reality, but it should be. I was gonna ask, do you know on the Nakamura,
00:12:51
Speaker
Do you remember installing the Royal College checks? I don't think I did myself. I had the Elliott guys do that.
00:13:00
Speaker
Got it, yeah, ours were installed and then the Haas tech was like, I got the run out on it down to whatever it was, one or two tenths or something measuring on the ID of that taper. And I mean, two tenths can sound good or it can sound like, well, wait a minute, why is it not zero, you know? But then I was like, what are you adjusting? He was kind of like, oh, well, nothing. I'm like, well, okay, so it just is what it is. It's not, there's no,
00:13:30
Speaker
There are no apparent mechanism built in to indicate or tram that in so far as I could tell. Yeah, I don't know. Do you just kind of loosen it and tap it over and then tighten it and try it again? Yeah, I would think so. I bet you it's like lipped on there, you know? Right. It should be locating itself. And look, hesitate to say,
00:13:51
Speaker
I'm not like you as you build up the stack on the lathe, it's not like you want to be adding tenths at every joint, but you know, two tenths out that relatively far and for the work we're doing and turning down, it shouldn't. I mean, the tolerances that we're hitting on that machine so far have been very much acceptable and actually quite good. So I'm not worried about it. But it's like if you took an indicator right now inside the taper of your mill, like the Cat 40 tape or the mill or the taper of the lathe, you would think it's almost not readable.
00:14:22
Speaker
Yeah, should be. Yeah. That's a good point, though. We should measure those kind of like we will be measuring those kind of things during teardown. So run out of the call it of the spindle bores on the neck will be a great idea. There's like zero chance you're going to remember to do that on Friday. Don't you think it's going to be hectic?
00:14:48
Speaker
We'll see. I got, I got what's today, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Okay. I'm good. I mean, not that I want to work all Saturday, Sunday, but I'm definitely willing to, um, make this happen. Are you going to have anybody professional come in when they're being reinstalled to level them? I should, but I'm pretty sure we can get away with it without because leveling's not that hard.
00:15:19
Speaker
Um, I don't know. I watched the guys do it on all of our machines coming in and I don't know. I need to go buy levels. Um, that's on my list for today. Yeah. Every time we've had a machine, um, every time we've watched one installed, I'm like, yeah, that's not so bad. And then you're like, Oh, but then if you try to do it yourself alone in a room, it's always like second guessing yourself about what, which foot do you do? And then if you have a little bit of, of,
00:15:48
Speaker
I guess you don't have a, you know, your knocks not that long, but if you had twist in the bed, what do you really do to get that twist out or something? And how do you measure that twist? Um, like level is one thing. Also it's, it's a slant bed basically. So how do you get X level? Yeah. I wasn't even referring to earth level. I just mean leveling in the sense of, of your perpendicularity of, of the column to the table or the lathe twist of the bed.
00:16:17
Speaker
Exactly. And the one thing one of my Elliott guys was telling me a few weeks ago was not just twist in the bed, but the two spindles actually lining up. Right. You know, so when it transfers apart, it's got to be bang on.
00:16:32
Speaker
So one thought I had, it might be a little bit of a gimmicky hack, but like if you took a quarter inch shank, like a back of an end mill or something, and put it in the main, put it in the sub, jog them together, and kind of slid a collet between them, you know, like over top of each one.
00:16:48
Speaker
it would be able to tell how close I'm pointing my fingers towards each other right now, how close they are to each other. And if that call it slides easily, then like, you're bang on. Otherwise, you'll be able to feel a mismatch of even 10th probably. Yeah, I would think you would want to use a test indicator though, in the main and then from the main sweep the sub. Yeah, that would work too. Of course.
00:17:13
Speaker
I don't know though how responsive, I mean, it should be almost immediate when you start imparting stress in the feet.
00:17:20
Speaker
But yeah, that's a really good point, because you actually, I might do my first sub-spindle transfer today, which would be pretty horrifying. Yes. Super exciting. I didn't need it on the part I thought we would, which is awesome. But we're making a part today where I can get by doing it all on the main. I haven't figured that out yet. Like with 5-axis, you shouldn't use 5-axis unless you have to. Like it's not necessarily a good thing. Certainly simultaneous. But on the late, I haven't really got a feeling for,
00:17:49
Speaker
If I can get a part done on the main without having to include the programming risk or the hassle or the additional setup of transferring over to the sub, doing on the sub is better in the sense of how I do the toolpaths and obviously finishing without absolutely any burrs. But if you can get it off the main spindle and it's really, all it takes is one or two rotations with a deburring tool. I feel like that's probably still wins. Ew, one or two rotations, gross.
00:18:18
Speaker
By hand, you mean? Yeah. These are just the, uh, these are just the handles. We make speed vice handles in our training class classes and nice, nice. This part we usually, I can't remember if the students make them sometimes if we have extra time, they do, but otherwise we just have them ready and they make the rest of it and then they can assemble the thing. So we made them on the mill before, but it's another mill part that we're going to move over to the lathe. Nice. Move over to your, your round mill. Yeah, exactly. My horizontal mill.
00:18:48
Speaker
So we talked a couple weeks ago about your angled part off tool. Is that working really well? Yes. Although, and I don't remember how much I shared, we tweaked some speeds and feeds and to get it to where the burr was even less. In fact, really non-existent from an actual having a cylindrical, like having an actual
00:19:13
Speaker
what like one eighth inch little flange of material that you have to tear off or remove off.
Machine Maintenance and Decommissioning
00:19:19
Speaker
But even when I got rid of that, there is a very slight lip and it almost like it transferred with the location of that lip.
00:19:29
Speaker
from being on the inside to the outside. I don't like that because I still have to hand process that part. If I'm going to hand process it, I'd rather have the larger piece on it. First of all, that way was faster on the machine and that gives you a visual reminder that you need to finish that part. It's been working great like that.
00:19:52
Speaker
I see what you mean. So when it has the flangey thing, then it reminds you like I still have to finish this part, but if it's a tiny little burr, you might not see it. Right. You might miss it and I don't like that at all. Yep. So the parts are running fine now today. Yesterday I started it today. I got to finish figuring out the corks on the bar feeder because we're using a Royal Chuck that is technically not compatible with our bar feeder as a bar pusher.
00:20:25
Speaker
And the action. Why? Because we're using the Accu-Length, which is the one you want, but when the Accu-Length closes with the bar feeder as a bar pusher, the stock is... So the bar feeder pushes the bar forward to a known distance, but then there's nothing arresting further motion of the bar. So when the Accu-Length call it closes,
00:20:51
Speaker
It pushes the bar forward an inconsistent amount. Are you using a tool holder block or something to push the bar again? Exactly. So there's a bunch of ways to solve it. That's probably the easiest way. Right. Because a normal collet just tightens around it, like just all of a sudden clamps. This one, the way that collet, that flange around the collet pushes forward. It does impart some Z positive motion in the material.
00:21:21
Speaker
Buddy was saying that he thinks it's actually the floating draw tube gives it an inconsistent amount. In other words, it'll stop once the slug or bars is shorter than the area where you have the, what do you call the sleeves, spindle liners. So I can either push it up against a hard stop, like a turret block position, or I can bring the sub in and just push it up against the sub, lock it, and come back out, even if I'm not using the sub for anything else. Yeah, either one would work.
00:21:52
Speaker
Or what else was I just thinking I could do? Or you're going to laugh. I could still grab it with the sub and pull it out. I just don't want to have to always have a collet that fits. Those Royal collets are expensive. And so this is inch and a half material. I don't necessarily want to buy duplicates of every size if I'm just like I'm facing off the stick, the material at the end. So I don't really care about losing 50 or 75,000 material.
00:22:22
Speaker
Right. 50 or 75. Man, I do like five though. I think we do 10 or 15 on the part, but in this case, I've obviously programmed in some cushion. That's awesome. Yeah, that's, that's excellent. Yeah. The way we do our parts, uh, for both leads is like, we always need the right main call at the right sub call it. Cause we transfer literally everything. Um,
00:22:50
Speaker
So yeah, I always got to have the right college in stock and sucks when I don't. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but so far it's the whole experience on everything there has been awesome. Um, seeing that run is just, it's the cheapest form of automation, which is working out better than I thought.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, I see people say it on Instagram, and they're basically right. I mean, buying a live tool lathe, especially with the sub spindle, is a license to print money if you have the right kind of parts to run on it. It just runs, and it runs, and it runs, and it runs. Yeah, I was at a buddy shop on Friday and saw a part that is very much a mill part, three ops, complicated, some tight tolerances. And if you were looking to increase production on those, I said, hey, I'm not
00:23:39
Speaker
definitive, I'd have to look at the cam and look at the part and understand the tolerances a little bit better, but I bet you could actually run this on a bar fed lathe, which is also phenomenal because those are still very versatile tools. You're not purchasing a bespoke machine tool that has limitations.
00:23:56
Speaker
Maybe it's not perfect, maybe it's not the fastest way, but if you want to stick four pieces of material in that bar feeder and just let it go to town, that's the way to win here is steady production of a quality part, not necessarily banging them out, loading a fan fixture and then putting them in an insanely fast robo-drill. I'd rather put them in a slower bar-fed lane that can just keep going.
00:24:26
Speaker
benefits and downsides alternatively here like on a mill you have to have pre-cut stock you have to have saw cut like slugs basically whereas on a lathe you just buy a whatever six foot bar three foot bar whatever fits um and also i've heard that bar bar stock is cheaper yeah isn't that funny so like you you got a lot of wins here putting it on a lathe besides lathes are awesome so do you deburr the end of your
00:24:55
Speaker
round bar material before you stick it in the left side of your leg? On the Nakamura, it's not as critical, but yes, if there's a little flap sticking up, sometimes it doesn't like going through the collets. So on the Nak, I'll usually like mostly make a point of knocking any little burrs off. On the Swiss, I have to taper it like halfway down.
00:25:19
Speaker
Oh, wow. So the nub is half the diameter of the bar, at least. So you got this big fat 45 on there, because otherwise it won't guide itself through the guide bushing. It'll just hit. So how do you do that?
00:25:34
Speaker
A grinder. So we've got a belt grinder, 1x42. Got it. Which is interesting, because right now we've got it in the other shop, which is kind of the messy shop. But in the new building, we're going to have two separate buildings. The machine shop is going to be literally a clean room. And then the front building is going to be all the dirtier stuff. But I'm still going to want a grinder and a Scotch-Brite wheel and some stuff in the machine shop. So we're going to have to come up with some clever dust filtration.
00:26:01
Speaker
the lots of downdraft tables that automatically turn on when you turn the grinder on or belt sander on. Nice. Yeah, that's totally the way to go. It just seems weird. I mean, I guess your stuff is smaller diameter, but still holding a four foot bar and rotating it as you six foot. Oh, yeah, it's kind of funny.
00:26:20
Speaker
Seems like it, but my bars are like quarter inch, three eights, like tiny, right? I can just see somebody getting closed line though, because there's a six foot bar flapping around in the hallway. That's your feeding it through. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's nice. Like I hold them vertically while I walk around, but you're still holding a piece as tall as you are walking through the building. I could see, uh, actually you ever seen people do, um, flame straightening on material?
00:26:49
Speaker
Not really, but I can visualize it. You put it on two or three like pillow block, like roller bearing things so that the bar just rolls. I could see a really simple system where you have a little Swiss prep station where you just lay the bar on the rollers
00:27:04
Speaker
And then you just run your hand over it that rotates it as you have a, like on your right hand, you have a, almost like a turret lathe where you use the arm to move the turret in and out. You could basically be rolling the bar by hand as you have a little platform on a 45 degree angle with a little linear scale or something simple where you have the belt sander mounted it. So as you roll the bar, you're just moving the belt sander in. That way you're not like hand whipping the, it's more consistent. It's clean because it keeps everything there.
00:27:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's full grim smoke. Yeah, I like that. One day, it's it's literally not hard to do by hand. And if it's inconsistent, it doesn't matter. But but that would be sweet. Yeah. Do you do any interrupted partying? Or grooving? Not really. No. Okay. It's also got interrupted like a square.
00:27:58
Speaker
Well, or anything where you've machined a feature with a live tool such that when it goes to do the interrupted part, or when it goes apart, it's not circular, it's coming in and out of the cut. No, I don't think I do. And does your lathe have regular coolant and high pressure coolant? Yeah, the Nakamura has like, you know,
00:28:21
Speaker
peeing pressure and 300 PSI. Are they the same except like they come through the same? Two pumps, same line. Same line. Yeah, that threw me because like on a mill, it's a different, well, high pressure is through spindle. True, yeah. Whereas the urination level is just the walk line.
00:28:46
Speaker
Right. Yeah, on the lathe, there's a check valve that switches between the two, like automatically.
00:28:54
Speaker
Yeah. So the two feet into two check valves and then a Y I guess, or a T and then to the spindle or the turret block, I guess. Yeah. We have a thousand on the ST20Y and it wasn't working. There was an alarm. Wow. Yeah. If everyone said it's first off, you don't get a thousand out of the Haas system. It's a little bit lower depending on the tooling.
00:29:18
Speaker
Do you have a gauge on it? Yeah, it has it in the control. John from Area 419 was showing me this. That video actually should air in this month. It's a really good shop tour. But he has a DS30Y. I think he has one that has the Haas coolant system. Then he has one where they ended up putting a chip blaster system on it, which is they're both 1000, but the chip blaster is a bit higher quality, more expensive, and it has adjustable levels.
00:29:46
Speaker
In the control, you can see what you commanded and then what you're actually getting. And the chip blaster one, I think you get what you program is what you get, whereas the Haas one, I want to say when he was at 1000, if he was in the hole with a small drill, it may only have been 700 or something. Yeah, it's still fine. It wasn't actually for him. No difference in processor liability between the two for sure. Good point. Yeah, for sure. Interesting.
00:30:14
Speaker
Yeah on the Swiss I have a chip blaster and it's supposed to be good for 2000 PSI. I've often seen 1800 coming out of it sometimes 1500 and it totally depends on how big the orifices are and how many are open. Got it. That's crazy. But I mean 1500 is still a lot. Yeah. That's like.
00:30:33
Speaker
It works great. Does anybody know who's listening? I mean, 1,000 PSI on a concentrated stream of non-compressible liquid. That, I would think, would not intersect well with human flesh. Yeah, it would like cut you. Cut your finger off, right? I would think. Yeah, it could. I mean, water jets run at what, 40,000 and up, 40,000 to 80,000 PSI?
00:31:00
Speaker
Um, that's a lot more. Yeah. So this is this, it's a lot more, but still like a water jet will cut through steel. We're talking about fleshed. Like, yeah, I wouldn't want to get a thousand in, in the way I might have to bring an Oscar Meyer home and it seems very appropriate for, uh, our love for lay stick on the Oscar Meyer and the Royal and then, uh, straight fit with, uh, some high pressure coolant. Yes, you do. It's, it's done now. We'll have to add hot dogs to the proven cut speeds and fees library. Oh my goodness.
00:31:28
Speaker
That'll actually go great because when I burned the lathe down, I didn't have a cooked hot dog. There you go. A little post-mortem lunch. Love it. So I'm going first. The other thing I realized is because we're moving on Monday, that means I will get to see the Kern on Monday morning.
New Kern Machine Excitement
00:31:52
Speaker
Stop. It's being delivered on Monday?
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah, the sim riggers are storing it, so they have it at their place. So when they get their VersaLifts, they're just going to dump the Kern and the U-MOCs on the trucks, come on over, drop them off first, drive across the street, get the machines, blast them over. So I'm so excited. I feel like I want to like irrationally come up for that, but I know that's going to be really cool, dude. They're using VersaLifts, huh? Impressive. Yeah.
00:32:24
Speaker
That's cool. Yeah. I was talking with the owner of the company for quite a long time and, and about business and life and everything. And you know, the investment he's got into it. Um, and yeah, he said the versatile lifts are like $450,000. That's like a lot of hooch. Yes.
00:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, the guy here across the street who moved in has a pretty big fabrication company and they're starting to do some of their own, more of their own rigging and he picked up a used VersaLift and I mean, it's amazing. It can lift, I don't even know, 60,000 pounds or something or more maybe. Yup. Yup. And they extend, right? They get longer based on the counterweight need. Yup. He's got that like, what do you call that? Like telescoping butt end so that just the wheel base can go out to something pretty crazy.
00:33:13
Speaker
You don't have anything that heavy, though. Yeah. No, but I don't know if they're going to bring that, but they certainly have lots of them. But yeah, so see the current on Monday and then the following Monday, which is like a week and a half from now, Tony from Current Precision USA and one of his tech guys are going to come up and install it for a week. Awesome. So in like two weeks, we'll probably be making a part with our new 5-axis. That's going to be awesome.
00:33:44
Speaker
Oh, I'm so pumped. You know, I like I don't know. It's like of where to put the machines. I'm 90%. I just need this this weekend, obviously. Need to spend some time totally finalizing it being like, Yes, this is the plan. And then we'll go to the shop, we'll tape it out. And it'll be good to go. Oh, that's a good call. Taping out would be would be super helpful.
00:34:11
Speaker
Oh yeah, yeah, we've always done that for all the machines. And then the rigger comes in and just bumps it around, you know, like shifts it until it's dead center. That works good.
00:34:21
Speaker
Have you heard of anything that's real that you or I could actually program up and use with VR or AR that would let you... It just seems so simple. Modeling your approximate room is simple. We have solids of the machines. Why can't you in 2020 walk through this new shop virtually right now?
00:34:45
Speaker
It's called a 3D printer. No, it's still not the same. I mean, we love our printed model as well, but it's not the same. Yeah. No, I see what you mean. I don't know. That's a lot good question right here. I know you can do it with not Revit, but one of the factory studio design pro or something, which I think is Autodesk software, but that's like learning Photoshop. I just mean,
3D Printing in Shop Planning
00:35:08
Speaker
especially with AR,
00:35:11
Speaker
Um, that whole, what magic leap company, um, where you are supposed to be able to just instantly transform your surroundings to an augmented reality scenario where you're seeing your room, which is great. Cause now you don't have to worry about trying to mimic the lighting or the window placement. Cause it's more than just a box, right? It says there's nuances to it, but then, Hey, plop, put, I'm going to put these AR glasses on and then plop the current down right there and the Yuma here. And what does it look like?
00:35:40
Speaker
Right, right. Well, I got kind of the sense of that with the 3D printed model when I did an Instagram story and I took my phone kind of upside down so the camera was down low. And I kind of flew it through the shop at eye level. And I was like, this is actually really, really cool. I feel like I'm there. And if I had a smaller camera, a smaller phone that wasn't four inches wide,
00:36:05
Speaker
You could really go and walk around, right? Like a little spy camera or something. Yeah, I know it to me. When we get crouched down and look through the door of our 3D printed shop, which is only a few feet footprint, but if you look through it at the door level from the outside with your eyeball, you can sort of trick your mind. You get it. Okay, this is our shop. I know it.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I've been doing that, too, because our shop is kind of skinny and long. So we're going to have rows on the left, rows on the right, and everything's going to be on the side and the aisle is going to be fairly empty or for tables or stuff. So with the 3D printed model, I can kind of crouch down and like, OK, what is my vantage point going to be? You know, am I going to be able to see all the controllers from one position? Is it, you know, all these things I'm trying to try to conceptualize? It's cool.
00:36:58
Speaker
We'll keep posting on Insta. It's really cool to see the pictures of you on the floor.
00:37:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. We're having, uh, I'm having a lot of fun posting on Instagram and the feedback's been amazing. And, uh, we've been filming a lot too, especially at the technical side. Um, both me just with my phone catching moments and then Fraser with his big rig, getting all the sexy footage, all the slow mo and stuff. And, uh, yeah, so we've got a series of YouTube videos coming out with everything, the whole process. So it'd probably be 10 parts by the time we're done. Um,
00:37:33
Speaker
Are you going to wheel? Like if you have a shopping cart or a tote, are you going to wheel anything to the new shop or does everything have to get loaded? Probably. Yeah, we probably will wheel it.
00:37:46
Speaker
We've got one plastic cart from Uline that we're currently using for chemical storage because it's red. But we'll probably use that. And then I got another gray one coming today. And then some of our tables have wheels. And we'll be taking some stuff over today to clear space. Oh, that's cool. That's really cool.
00:38:11
Speaker
I'll never forget that feeling. We've moved a few times in our lives, our house, and that feeling when you're like, I'm not going to hang another picture. And in fact, I'm probably going to start taking a picture or two off the wall. That's kind of like, oh my gosh, this is it. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I haven't had that exact moment yet because I haven't moved. I haven't transferred anything from one shop to the other, except for yesterday we did toilet paper and paper towels. I'm like, we're getting low in that shop.
00:38:41
Speaker
bring some over Fraser and you know distribute it evenly amongst the bathrooms and everybody will be happy about that. Cool. But yeah today is yeah we'll start moving some stuff and decommissioning the lathe and run the mill for another day hard and then tomorrow we'll start tearing it down. It's gonna be awesome.
00:39:01
Speaker
It's all going really well, like smooth. And I hope it continues. There will be hiccups and problems and stuff. The weird thing that I'm noticing right now is I'm the one stressing and handling all the burden and everybody else is just working hard, which is awesome.
00:39:22
Speaker
And I'm at the point now where it's like, I need to start handing these things off, but I literally don't know what to hand off. And I was talking with Mike at Milterra because we went up to their place and filmed an epic shop tour about their move and about their move in. And he was the exact same way. He's like, yeah, I did all the planning. I did all the work. I did all the coordination. Everybody else had a job to do, so they did their work.
00:39:46
Speaker
and I coordinated this move. So it gave me this pleasant validation of like, okay, I'm not crazy. Thank you for being similar to me.
00:40:00
Speaker
But from an outside perspective, the unsolicited advice is the move is finite. So I'm not, not too worried about that. I'm more worried about your ability to change. Like I did a shop tour on Monday and even further reaffirms my decision that, that you and your stage, you shouldn't even be pro you should not be programming. You should be running machines. And I, I understand.
00:40:26
Speaker
I'm a ways from that, but I'm inching towards it. I don't mean to mansplain it to you and have you non-confrontationally just think to yourself, shut up, John. I don't mean it like that. I mean it.
Leadership and Task Delegation in Business
00:40:37
Speaker
Once you get there, we both have hit those hurdles in our businesses and that's what we are supposed to do for each other is push each other and think about that. It's not easy to do. When you start thinking about
00:40:51
Speaker
it's the thing i probably continue struggles at the right word but to recognize my own limitation is switching between technician manager and and the business owner is not an easy mindset to do. If you think about like john if i could give you review could hire a full time.
00:41:11
Speaker
programmer and machinist right now who could take on XYZ tasks and so forth and come back to you just so you could troubleshoot or you could put out fires. But that person is thus able to take over existing stuff as well as help with new stuff. I kind of think that that's somebody you'd be like, that would be, oh my gosh, that would be a dream. I would love that. Of course, yeah. And as we think about further scale and growth, those are definitely the kind of thoughts going through my mind.
00:41:41
Speaker
Because otherwise, we're literally crippled by a few key experts in the business that are the only people that know how to do this task. And it's definitely not scalable. Even just with the Swiss being a new complicated machine that's my baby, and then the Kern being a new complicated machine that's going to be my baby, plus running the business, plus making decisions. I'm going to have to make some changes here in the next two months that's going to allow me to do what I want to do.
00:42:11
Speaker
So yeah, I'm looking forward to it, but I gotta be open-minded and clear with what's possible and what other people are capable of, too. Right, right. Are you into or familiar with the, I don't know if it's a book or podcast or all the above, about the concept of total ownership, which I think comes from one of those former Navy guys? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, extreme ownership. Extreme. Yeah, I read the book, I've got it. Okay, are you a fan?
00:42:41
Speaker
Um, for the most part, yeah, I am. I'm just curious. Yeah. As with most things, I don't like blindly agree with everything, but, uh, but no, there's a lot, a lot of really positive, like benefit to that mindset wise. How would you summarize it? Um, that's a good question.
00:43:05
Speaker
Extreme ownership, whether you are the leader or the individual kind of, I don't like to say at the bottom of the totem pole, but the new guy or whatever, you're still responsible for your own actions. And the leader especially is responsible for everybody else that he leads. And there's no ifs, ands, or buts around that. Like if you make a mistake, own up to it, and move on, accept it, and figure it out. And the quicker, the better.
00:43:33
Speaker
And there's kind of a bluntness to it that I suck with, which is maybe why I'm drawn to the concept that gives progress forward. You know what I mean?
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah, I want to learn more about it. I think I like it, and I think I like it both because of what it reinforces, but then what it also disavows. It shuns the people that look for excuses, and it shuns. I've learned as an adult, I have to live and work in a framework that rewards folks that have worked hard and done well.
00:44:13
Speaker
There's a whole other concept that I want to talk to you maybe next week about about like this idea of the balance of luck skill and embracing the knowledge of the world around you and what mix of those leads us to where we are and
00:44:28
Speaker
Inevitably, there's some things we don't control. That's fine. But this idea that it'll all work out and we're all here. We can't control our own fate and destiny. Everything's pre-planned and we'll just figure it out. No, I was raised and I live and I believe.
00:44:48
Speaker
you know, separately from how I was raised. I think that's important too, is a question in your own values about what you truly identify as, but I live in a meritocracy. I believe if you have a plan and you work hard and you apply yourself, you can control or influence that outcome. And I think that's, I don't know if I'm nailing the idea of total ownership there, but if that's what it is, I think I like that a lot. Absolutely, yeah. How much have you been exposed to it? Like just a little bit? Minor, super minor.
00:45:18
Speaker
Right, yeah, I'd say get the book, read the book, it's amazing. A lot of really great war stories that are like, holy crap, you know, they're just fun to read. But tied with that, it's like every chapter is war story and then business application because he's taken his Navy SEAL, like he was an operator and then he was a leader and then he trains Navy SEALs now and he's one of the best trainers. And also he's got, or maybe now he's transitioned to,
00:45:47
Speaker
basically business coach, maybe the wrong word, but you know, training, seal techniques to business environment. So every chapter kind of ends with an actual business case story of here's how we used leadership techniques.
00:46:06
Speaker
in the seals and how you can use them in this business for this situation. So there's a lot of really good situational stuff that you read and you're like, yep, that's, I've had that. I've been there. I'm really glad I'm reading this right now. It's good to know. And what I, I think you're, you're more naturally, um,
00:46:27
Speaker
Blunter and more assertive and harder than I am just you just are and This is this is like times a hundred. Yeah, you know So you might like it you might be graded by a little bit. I don't know we'll see but you should definitely Well, we are pushing time and I would ask what you're up to today, but I already know which is gonna be awesome So I'll talk to you next post move It's crazy
00:46:56
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. We should be. Yeah. The machines will be done for sure. Good luck. Be safe with everybody. Please on machines and I'll make your safety and all that. And I hope it goes well. Of course. I hope it's not negative 29 degrees. Yeah.
00:47:16
Speaker
Our poor friends in Calgary and Edmonton are very cold right now. It's like above freezing right now. It's not even cold. Wamish isn't that cold. I mean, his Tesla preheats itself, so it's really hard to be sympathetic for that. Exactly. Take care, but I'll see you. Bye. Okay, take care. Bye. Each week on the Business of Machining podcast, we ask viewers to send in an audio clip of how the Business of Machining podcast has affected or helped them. Here's this week's viewer.
Listener Impact Stories
00:47:47
Speaker
Hey Johns, my name is Quinn and with my cat Sprocket I run Blondiehacks, a small YouTube channel and blog dedicated to teaching makers and hobbyists how to be manual machinists. My YouTube channel is a small growing business and the bomb has helped me do thought experiments for the different directions I can take with it in the future. One possible growth route for me is to start making products and hearing your experiences has been an invaluable window into what that might look like.
00:48:12
Speaker
I'm also learning a lot of CNC just by being around you guys and hearing your conversations about the day to day. Thanks for the podcast. Keep it up and carry on.